Breaking the brass ceiling

After 33 years in the Army, Ann E. Dunwoody ascended to a peak never before reached by a woman in the U.S. military: four-star general.

“Thirty-three years after I took the oath as a second lieutenant, I have to tell you this is not exactly how I envisioned my life unfolding,” she told a standing-room-only auditorium crowd at the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. “Even as a young kid, all I ever wanted to do was teach physical education and raise a family. It was clear to me that my Army experience was just going to be a two-year detour en route to my fitness profession.”

Dunwoody, 55, said only person was more surprised than she was: her husband of 26 years, Craig Brotchie. “You know what they say,” she said. “Behind every successful woman there is an astonished man.”